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Fujita and Gleason: A friendship forged in faith

The soul of the New Orleans Saints is personified by the man who will always be remembered for the miracle in the Superdome.

It was the first game back home, following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

The city, down on its knees, needed a lift.

Steve Gleason provided that unforgettable lift with his block of an Atlanta Falcons punt.

Now battling ALS, Gleason is determined to produce yet another miracle by beating the disease and helping find a cure.

The entire Saints football team has joined the fight with Gleason and retired Saints linebacker, and Saints on 6 analyst, Scott Fujita, is leading the charge.

I recently profiled the improbable journey of Gleason and Fujita, which took them 10,000 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains.

Gleason, being a cult hero of the Saints, is a symbol of no surrender.

Though today, he is unable to walk or talk, he is in constant motion; his sense of adventure never stops.

Following surgery, in November 2012, to insert a diaphragm pacemaker that helps him breathe, Gleason engaged his friend – former Saints linebacker Scott Fujita, for a “Mission: Impossible.”

“Steve comes up, and we're in recovery in the hospital, and he kind of leans over and says, ‘Hey come here a second.’ So I go over real close and he kind of whispers, ‘Hey, what are you doing this April?’ I say, ‘I got nothing planned.’ And he says, ‘I want you to take me to Machu Picchu,’” Fujita said. “And I said, ‘As in Peru? As in 10,000 feet Machu Picchu?’ He says, ‘Yeah. I want you to take me there.’ And said, ‘I have no idea how we're going to pull that off but you can count me. Let’s book it.”

Fujita said he doesn’t know how he pulled it off. But he did.

“I don't know, and, in fact, it wasn't the safest or most responsible thing we've ever done. That's kind of par the course for Steve. He always dreams big and beyond the realm of possibility of what you think would be possible but we did it,” Fujita said.

Fujita called the experience something that was once in a lifetime. Fujita struggled to find words to encapsulate the mission and how difficult it was carrying Gleason and another ALS patient on what was meant to be a seven-hour day trip. The trip lasted well into the night.

“It ended up being maybe 11 or 12 hours, and we spent three or four hours in the high jungle in pitch darkness,” Fujita recalled.

Even in darkness, once atop the city in the sky, Fujita said, there was a spiritual light – the rays embracing the entire travel party. That’s when the head of security, who was also a shaman, offered a special prayer.

“And that was the connection point for everything; And really a blessing for Steve, a blessing for his wife Michel and a blessing for the whole travel party,” Fujita said. “And even though we still weren't to the end of the road, you felt like everything was going to be all right.”

When asked about what about the prayer made it a blessing for everyone, Fujita called it a “connection point.”

“Again I had no idea what he was even saying; he didn't speak English. But it was a connection point; he had everybody linking up and holding hands and realizing what you had gone through and being thankful, first of all that no one got hurt or much much worse, but the fact that you had to lean on almost everyone to get it done. There are moments when I’m holding Steve’s chair from the back and my hands are going out. My forearms are cramping up and I got to lean on somebody else to come in and take over for me,” Fujita said.

The former Saint described his journey with Gleason as a spiritual transformation.

“I'm learning to live in the moment,” he said. “And I think that's the message we should all take home, ‘Be more in the moment. Enjoy everything you go through.' ... I think I’m more emotional. When Steve announced his diagnosis, I had a complete breakdown. It was hard. I re-evaluated a lot of things in my life. Do I want to keep playing football? Do I have my priorities in the right place? All those kinds of things. And I think I’m more grounded now -- Just the sense of perspective. That's been the biggest change in me.”

Fujita lost an uncle to ALS 17 years ago and understands personally what Gleason and Michel, are going through.

He said he is lifted up by Gleason’s courage and determination not to let the disease dictate how he lives his life.

That drives the commitment to the Team Gleason Foundation, which is supported by the Saints and the NFL in its search to find a cure for ALS.

“He's literally inspiring patients all over the world -- not just with ALS, but with all kind of afflictions,” Fujita said. “We're high up in the mountains in the Andes and we find someone whose dad was also afflicted with ALS in Ecuador and he comes in and he says he's been following Steve’s story and he breaks down in tears; that's how moved he is by Steve.”

However, no one is more moved by Gleason than the “Who Dat Nation.”

Gleason is the heart and soul of what makes the Saints so special; always ready for a challenge and ready to fight the good fight.

“In fact, (Steve’s) even gotten more adventurous, which blows my mind. But that's part of the fun of it I mean, the journey continues with this guy. Who knows what we're going to do next?” Fujita said.

Coaches were more vocal and aggressive with players as training camp pushes ahead full steam. Players clashed with one another in several hard hits and tackles, indicating that ferocity was the name of the game.

The Obama administration will unveil a major climate change plan Monday aimed at a large reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the nation's coal-burning power plants, a senior administration official told CNN.